Posted by upsetcity on 4/23/2021 10:59:00 PM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 4/23/2021 4:34:00 PM (view original):
Coaches use the superclass, but it’s not dominant. It’s one path, among many viable paths, that’s one thing 3.0 made sure to fix. 4 year promises would completely change the balance, and if you’re not seeing this, you’re not thinking very far in front of what’s in front of you.

Folks are annoyed at the starts freshmen get, but lots of players in real life see playing time diminish as their careers go on, because the teams get better around them. That’s how teams work. The question is just whether there is a natural and rational consequence for the choice of offering a promise. Currently there is. Fulfilling a promise to a freshman almost always hurts good teams in the short term.

In a long term game, where people come and go, this is just a really bad idea with lots of unintended consequences. I just don’t think you’ve fully thought them all through. If it’s not bringing the game closer to a realistic college basketball recruiting experience, it’s not good for the game, that is the real bottom line.

To clarify, I don't think the 4-year start thing is the BEST idea but I do believe it's better than what is currently available. Just to touch on a few things...

1. "almost always hurts good teams in the short term" - I mean, not really? I'm super surprised at this comment. I just opened up Tark's NT now. #1 overall seed Duke: immediately sat his 2 stud freshman once the time came, #1 seed Syracuse: immediately sat his 2 stud freshman once the time came, #1 seed Illinois: immediately sat his 2 stud freshman once the time came, #2 seed Kentucky: immediately sat his 3 stud freshman once the time came, #2 seed UCLA: immediately sat his 3 stud freshman once the time came AND sat his 2 stud SOs to put in his actual lineup.. The other #1 seed, Delaware State, only had 1 freshman this season but I can confirm chapel differentiates in his season outlooks "regular season lineup" vs. "my actual lineup". My point being.. It's fine to not want 4 year starts but c'mon, you're reaching about how damaging it is in the short term..
2. You're saying how 4 year starts lacks strategy.. elite tier D1 HAS one strategy. Get the best recruits by any means. Let's also not reach like there is so higher strategies that we can't comprehend. Looking over the top schools, there's one big one that you need to follow. Offer start, fulfill start, revoke start.
3. "lots of players in real life see playing time diminish as their careers go on, because the teams get better around them" - look at all the teams I mentioned in point 1. ALL of those teams are traditional powerhouses. The team isn't 'getting better around the recruit', the team is hoarding talent and requires each player to move to the bench in order to succeed. It's about maximizing your talent and you can't do that without unrealistically sitting the best players after their first year if you have a future replacement coming in.
4. "If it’s not bringing the game closer to a realistic college basketball recruiting experience, it’s not good for the game, that is the real bottom line." - huge overreaction imo and also completely an opinion. NCAA Football, before the whole lawsuit stuff, was pushing towards this stuff.. promises for winning conference, winning NC, beating rival state AND promising players will be the starter for multiple years. In fact, they had promises like "I won't recruit anyone at your position in the next __ years (I don't recall how long it was)". What are the unintended consequences?

I hope I'm not coming across rude in my asking. It's just that your counters as to why it's a bad idea are super vague and being portrayed as obvious.

1. No, it’s not a reach. Not at all. Fulfilling a promise to a freshman *almost always* hurts. It may not always show up in the outcome, like I’ve gotten 1 seeds starting freshmen the minimum required like lots of people. But you’re increasing the risk of losses when you’re doing that. It puts the team at risk for outcomes you don’t like. Sometimes it doesn’t show up in the end, but sometimes it’s the difference between a Sweet 16 team and a team that misses the tournament (that was Wisconsin a couple seasons ago with 3 draft picks, 2 in the first round, but dropped like 4 or 5 ridiculous games due to bad simulations while I was fulfilling promises, and missed the tournament). The risk is certainly *always* there.

2. The claim is made that 4 year promises “adds another layer” of strategy, and I am simply declining to view it that way. People have said similar things about allowing unlimited HVs and APs. This is a similarly bad idea, for similar reasons. I understand that the intention is that it will carry more weight, and therefore will be used more sparingly, but that’s where the unintended consequences come in (see below).

3. Ok, so? Again, folks get annoyed because they look at the promises as sort of “gaming the system”. My point (in the comment you removed from context) was that the process of kids getting early playing time, especially for development purposes, but then sitting later in the season, is not entirely unrealistic. So the annoyance is more with the hoarding of talent (the outcome) rather than the procedure (promising a recruit playing time). There are lots of ways to address this, ways I’ve been talking about since before beta for 3.0. But making promises 4 years long is moving in the wrong direction, because again, it is moving away from college basketball recruiting, and toward something else (see below).

4. I’ll just address everything else here I guess. Sorry if it seemed vague. My response was to mlitney; we had a similar conversation on this topic months ago, but in a little more detail. Since I am often accused of going on and on, and being repetitive, I generally don’t like to rehash the specifics of old conversations, unless it is required. I could probably go searching for it, but I don’t really want to, so here we go.

First of all, I make a distinction between sports dynasty games that *recruit* and games that *select* or draft players. These are very different types of games. To a large extent, this game has been oriented toward selecting, I suspect because it has been meant to appeal to fantasy sports fans. This is why there is such a heavy emphasis on resource allocation in the “recruiting” process. 3.0 did make some headway to correct that to some extent, which is good for what it is. I’ve always argued it didn’t go far enough. The game would be better if there was no cash, if recruits made selections based on prestige, preference matches and the prioritization of attention that teams made for them. Every advantage we think of in terms of nice facilities and air miles and cool parties and such should be covered by the concept of prestige. And everything we think of in terms of prioritization should be covered in terms of attention. But since the game masters chose to hold on to that resource allocation aspect, we are left with that *hoarding* component (see #3). Promises are actually the area of the game that most closely resemble pure college recruiting (I mean, when you compare it to 20 home visits at a time, lol...). You are on the trail, you are telling the kid “I can tell you that with the team I have next year, you will *definitely* play x amount of minutes.” “With the guys I have coming in, and coming back, I think I can probably put you in the starting lineup, how does that sound?”

Many (not all, so this is not an accusation, but many) of the folks who complain about promises simply don’t want to offer so many to get the recruits they want to get. They don’t like fulfilling them. They’d rather not. What’s the net effect of fewer promises (if that was indeed what we would see)? Higher prestige teams would benefit. Promises are an equalizer. Promises are easier for lower prestige teams to fulfill, they are easier to manage. If my team sucks, I’m handing them out like candy, and that annoys the **** out of teams with prestige a grade or 2 higher, because they want those guys cheaper than I’ve made them with my promise. Chilling promises is not the way to go, if we are annoyed by teams hoarding talent. And if the new Big Board stars are indicative of the intention to eventually move up early entry decisions, then even moreso. So the big reason I oppose this, related to the reason I oppose things like unlimited HVs, APs, or capping divisions of recruits, is that I think those things will ultimately close the gap within which lower prestige teams can realistically challenge for recruits. Those things are not good for the game. Yes, this is, like, just my opinion, man.

The way to address the issue folks have with this is so simple, and doesn’t require anything but reintroducing something that used to exist - let upperclassmen transfer because they’re unhappy. It could be related to a baseline set by freshmen promises, that’s fine, but it shouldn’t be standard or deterministic. But all they have to do is just say hey, you know I’m not getting enough playing time, I’m going to go somewhere else next year, AND THEN ACTUALLY GO. This used to happen. Now it doesn’t. Why not? Just make the system *intelligent* and not gamed or gimmicked. A recruit that comes in who “wants to play” should want to play. He should be bugging you about PT for his whole career. And I think likewise, there should be players with an inverse preference, like team player. Those players should be bugging you about leaving if you’re taking walkons. No reason that stuff can’t work, that I can see.

i still don't really get the idea that its easier for lower teams to fill promises. how? it seems to me the teams in the middle are the hard ones. if you are in a major rebuild season and going to miss the NT anyway, who cares, and if you are a top 10 team, its a couple seeds this way or that rarely makes much difference. i think those teams struggling to compete with the bigger clubs are the ones who really need their regular seasons to be good, the C to B prestige teams trying to make it to the NT, where the regular season being a little better or worse really counts and where the regular season impact on prestige isn't irrelevant (like it is for the perennial NT teams).

i don't think its that important of a point, it just is totally backwards. dealing with promises is a coaching problem, and its just way easier if your team is amazing and your freshman start 700. i don't mind promises at low d1, i start young players for growth and did so well before 3.0 promises forced our hands. but the low d1 struggle is real, and dealing with promises is a real obstacle for a lot of those folks. if you missed an NT with a quality wisconsin, surely you can appreciate how folks would miss the NT with some no-name school on B- prestige with a borderline NT caliber team, from having to start 2-4 freshman, and how much tougher that can make the overall rebuild.

i am not a fan of 4 year promises though! and definitely not when 'make them count for the NT too' creeps in. this game doesn't have realistic freshman, in real life some freshman come in and are some of the best players in the country on day 1. HD doesn't have that, largely due to IQ, but also ratings. if there were more freshman who could walk in and play and people could selectively promise the ones who were prime time ready or something, that would be different i guess. i don't know. i'm not a fan of beefing up the promises area of the game in general, i suppose.

Posted by gillispie on 4/24/2021 7:51:00 PM (view original):
i still don't really get the idea that its easier for lower teams to fill promises. how? it seems to me the teams in the middle are the hard ones. if you are in a major rebuild season and going to miss the NT anyway, who cares, and if you are a top 10 team, its a couple seeds this way or that rarely makes much difference. i think those teams struggling to compete with the bigger clubs are the ones who really need their regular seasons to be good, the C to B prestige teams trying to make it to the NT, where the regular season being a little better or worse really counts and where the regular season impact on prestige isn't irrelevant (like it is for the perennial NT teams).

i don't think its that important of a point, it just is totally backwards. dealing with promises is a coaching problem, and its just way easier if your team is amazing and your freshman start 700. i don't mind promises at low d1, i start young players for growth and did so well before 3.0 promises forced our hands. but the low d1 struggle is real, and dealing with promises is a real obstacle for a lot of those folks. if you missed an NT with a quality wisconsin, surely you can appreciate how folks would miss the NT with some no-name school on B- prestige with a borderline NT caliber team, from having to start 2-4 freshman, and how much tougher that can make the overall rebuild.

i am not a fan of 4 year promises though! and definitely not when 'make them count for the NT too' creeps in. this game doesn't have realistic freshman, in real life some freshman come in and are some of the best players in the country on day 1. HD doesn't have that, largely due to IQ, but also ratings. if there were more freshman who could walk in and play and people could selectively promise the ones who were prime time ready or something, that would be different i guess. i don't know. i'm not a fan of beefing up the promises area of the game in general, i suppose.

You’re not disagreeing with me, gil. Or if you are, you’ve misunderstood me.

I want a C+ team to be able to reasonably compete with an upper level team for recruits. A C+ (and under) team is more likely to be in that major rebuild, and therefore is the team who benefits most from promises, as they exist. Teams that don’t have the existing quality have the least to lose by fulfilling promises. That really shouldn’t be a controversial concept. I’m not disputing one way or the other whether it’s tough on teams in the middle. Lots of things are tough on teams in the middle. One thing is clear to me though: chilling promises benefits the teams at the top most. Like from a pure self interest standpoint, it would be great for A+ UConn and A+ Kentucky if the teams trying to punch up against me for my 2nd tier targets had to think twice about promises, or didnt have enough promises left to offer on their roster. Boon for me. That makes my prestige advantages all the more valuable.

i think its because i promise a lot at a+ and you don't, that we see it differently. you look at it as a way for the other guy to equalize, because you aren't always promising anyway - nobody is ever promising a recruit i am recruiting for when i am not already. or almost never. that's true both with a more like 10 man deep m2m scheme and a 12 deep fb/fcp.

'Teams that don’t have the existing quality have the least to lose by fulfilling promises. That really shouldn’t be a controversial concept'

- but yeah i am disagreeing 100% with that. i think a lot of people would disagree with that. i agree with your overall conclusions about 4 year promises though. i do think that for new rebuilds, and when a team has a big class graduate or whatever and has 6-8 openings, its easier to promise a bunch of players in those situations because you have to play them all anyway - but i don't equate that at all with prestige. high prestige teams have more openings than most, at times, from EEs.

anyway, for me its simple - the better players i have to surround my junk freshman with - the easier it is to have a coherent team in spite of those freshman. it also helps if some of them are super freshman. so high NT d1 teams are easier for me to promise than low NT teams.

Posted by gillispie on 4/24/2021 10:21:00 PM (view original):
i think its because i promise a lot at a+ and you don't, that we see it differently. you look at it as a way for the other guy to equalize, because you aren't always promising anyway - nobody is ever promising a recruit i am recruiting for when i am not already. or almost never. that's true both with a more like 10 man deep m2m scheme and a 12 deep fb/fcp.

'Teams that don’t have the existing quality have the least to lose by fulfilling promises. That really shouldn’t be a controversial concept'

- but yeah i am disagreeing 100% with that. i think a lot of people would disagree with that. i agree with your overall conclusions about 4 year promises though. i do think that for new rebuilds, and when a team has a big class graduate or whatever and has 6-8 openings, its easier to promise a bunch of players in those situations because you have to play them all anyway - but i don't equate that at all with prestige. high prestige teams have more openings than most, at times, from EEs.

anyway, for me its simple - the better players i have to surround my junk freshman with - the easier it is to have a coherent team in spite of those freshman. it also helps if some of them are super freshman. so high NT d1 teams are easier for me to promise than low NT teams.

“so high NT d1 teams are easier for me to promise than low NT teams.”

This last part makes me think you’re missing the whole of what I’m saying because you’re stuck on how you’re perceiving a piece of it. Because this is exactly it. Chilling promises - making the consequences steeper, and so less common overall - benefits high prestige, “high NT” D1 teams most of all, precisely because of the players we tend to make (and keep) promises to. We’ll keep making those promises to those guys, and it won’t hurt that much to keep them longer either, because of the teams we have. If lower level teams, whether mid-level Power conference teams or mid-majors, or lower, have to keep promises for 4 years, they have to fill their roster with players who can’t get promises. That increases the buying power of prestige for a lot of players. So at A+ UConn, I can still swing at a couple 5stars every year, and keep those promises (and not worry about holding them back either, let them leave after a couple seasons, as the new Big Board stars seem to indicate the direction we’re headed there), but the big difference will be those 1-2 star players that are currently so expensive because they draw a ton of attention from low and mid majors will be a lot cheaper, because those schools will have fewer promises to hand out. I mean that IS the point, right? Promises are handed out like candy, and some folks think there should be fewer. I was asked to get specific about why I don’t like the idea, and it’s the economy, stupid.

I can imagine having two flavors of promises - a one season promise and a flavor that is two seasons or four seasons

I dont much like it, but I can imagine it

Ome thing that would be a bad idea would be to change what promises mean without warning - like the change for nonqualifiers

I think ideally, this system would be intelligent, such that players would have career-long preferences toward playing time, and would be able to make roster and history evaluations and make choices accordingly. Like I think what no one likes is a system where users know there is a certain line where coaches are “safe” and they just don’t cross it. That’s what feels gamed and gimmicked. The antidote to that is better realism and a more intelligent system, I think. If the system can’t be made more intelligent, I think the balance we have now is preferable to throwing off that balance in unpredictable ways; or worse, skewing the game predictably back toward favoring established power centers.

So again, just simply opening up transfers for upperclassmen (with notice, of course) is much better than trying to chill promises, which both decreases its overall prevalence, and increases its isolated power, in both cases enhancing the outcomes for high prestige teams.

Where is the announcement of four-year promises? I must have missed it, sorry, and I'd like to read the details and see what I'm in for. Thanks.

Posted by StillWaters on 4/25/2021 12:53:00 PM (view original):
Where is the announcement of four-year promises? I must have missed it, sorry, and I'd like to read the details and see what I'm in for. Thanks.

No announcement. Just speculation, fueled a bit by the ineligible promise extension into the sophomore (first eligible) season.

Hasn't a promise to an ineligible player always extended to the sophomore year, his first year of eligibility?

never until now

Posted by shoe3 on 4/25/2021 2:01:00 AM (view original):
I think ideally, this system would be intelligent, such that players would have career-long preferences toward playing time, and would be able to make roster and history evaluations and make choices accordingly. Like I think what no one likes is a system where users know there is a certain line where coaches are “safe” and they just don’t cross it. That’s what feels gamed and gimmicked. The antidote to that is better realism and a more intelligent system, I think. If the system can’t be made more intelligent, I think the balance we have now is preferable to throwing off that balance in unpredictable ways; or worse, skewing the game predictably back toward favoring established power centers.

So again, just simply opening up transfers for upperclassmen (with notice, of course) is much better than trying to chill promises, which both decreases its overall prevalence, and increases its isolated power, in both cases enhancing the outcomes for high prestige teams.

I'm glad someone else is saying this. Whenever I say it, it seems to get ignored because I'm not a familiar face around here anymore.

Posted by utthead on 4/22/2021 7:30:00 PM (view original):
A totally unnecessary patch. Who campaigned for this?!?

I know I campaigned for this. It's ridiculous that we can offer 25 min and a start to a recruit and not have to honor it.

Maybe a different fix could've been blacking out the promise option if a player is inel, and once he becomes eligible, it lights up for use.

Offering a start and 25 minutes to a recruit, and not having to honor it....... that concept doesn't need some sort of fix to you?!

The ex post facto rollout is a big problem to me. Making a change without giving time to cycle out the promises that came before the announcement is uncool. Imagine rolling out career promises in this ex post facto way. There could be teams with an impossible set of promises to fill for multiple years. Make the changes and fix the issues, but give notice for people to change strategies accordingly. What does it benefit by changing it one year too soon. It randomly affects some and not others based on one year of recruiting. It's not even necessarily punishing the "worst offender" (if we want to use that terminology) due to the arbitrary nature of what season this change was implemented. It hurts a random cross-section of users more than others. This could have affected everyone equally if the announcement was one season before implementation.

I like the change, just not how it was handled. And I don't think it was a loophole, just low risk. A player becomes eligible passing the SAT and promises now mean something. Otherwise, and for the most part, they just cycled through and promises went away. I am in favor of more promises carrying through.

Posted by topdogggbm on 4/25/2021 9:12:00 PM (view original):

Posted by utthead on 4/22/2021 7:30:00 PM (view original):
A totally unnecessary patch. Who campaigned for this?!?

I know I campaigned for this. It's ridiculous that we can offer 25 min and a start to a recruit and not have to honor it.

Maybe a different fix could've been blacking out the promise option if a player is inel, and once he becomes eligible, it lights up for use.

Offering a start and 25 minutes to a recruit, and not having to honor it....... that concept doesn't need some sort of fix to you?!

Well thanks for nothing.

This wasn't a problem and definitely wasn't worthy of this problem causing fix.

The balance to offering promises to ineligibles was always that they may become eligible and you would have to honor those promises.

And that was fine. Nobody was getting some cheating advantage from this.

Don't fix things that ain't broke.

And the idea of multi-season promises is even more unnecssary. Nobody wants this except maybe a few select people determined to overthink and over manage the game.